Category: Isaiah

There’s Only You and Me and We Just Disagree- Epiphany 2

There’s Only You and Me and We Just Disagree- Epiphany 2

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection
January 15, 2017
Luke 4:14-30

So let’s leave it alone ’cause we can’t see eye to eye
There ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy
There’s only you and me and we just disagree

-Dave Mason, We Just Disagree

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It was about 20 years ago, that I attended a large Baptist church in Washington, DC. The church was an odd mix, or at least it would be odd today. Evangelicals and liberals were somehow able to worship together, along side a healthy dose of members from Latin America and Asia.

The church decided at some point to hire a pastor to the join the good-sized multi-pastor staff. The person chosen was a woman with great pastoral care skills. At the time, there was a bit of controversy because she was pro-gay and some of the evangelicals in the church weren’t crazy about that.

I was at a meeting where a member of the congregation stood up. She was one of the evangelical members of the congregation and she had what could be considered a “traditional” understanding on homosexuality, but she spoke in favor of calling the pastor. You see, the pastor had been involved with congregation for a few years and the two had gotten to know each other. “We don’t agree,” I recall this woman saying when talking about the issue they didn’t see eye-to-eye on. But this woman was a good friend and she saw her as the right person for the job.

What’s so interesting about this story is that I don’t think it could happen today. Churches like the one in DC really don’t exist anymore. Evangelicals and liberals have sorted themselves into different churches and don’t really know each other. Which only makes it easier to highlight differences and demonize each other.

In Luke 4, Jesus comes back home to Nazareth and go to the local synagogue.  He reads from Isaiah 61:1-2, which is an inspiring text.  The people love this, a local boy made good. 

But Jesus knew what was going on in the hearts, so he decides to tell some more stories.  One is a story from I Kings 17 where the great prophet Elijah helped feed a non-Jewish woman and her son in the town of Zarapath during a famine.  The famine struck Jewish widows as hard as non-Jewish widows, but this was where God led Elijah.  Jesus then goes to 2 Kings 5 and tells the story of the prophet Elisha healing Naaman, a Syrian (not Jewish) general, from leporesy.  He was healed even though there were many in Israel that suffered from the skin problems.

This did not go well with the crowd.  The mood went from pride to a homocidal rage.  The pushed Jesus towards a cliff in order to throw him off, but Jesus was able to slip away.

Sometimes we can mouth the words that Jesus loves everybody, but in our heart of hearts, they are just that: words.  Deep down, we want God to provide for us, but not for that evangelical Christian.  We want to be showered with blessings, but we don’t want that liberal Christian getting anything from God.  We want to be God’s special people and we want those that disagree with us to go to hell.

But God doesn’t work that way.  When it is said that God so loved the world, it really means God so loved the world; as in everybody. Instead of welcoming people into God’s realm, we start to act like the holy bouncers deciding who is on the special list and who isn’t.

Jesus had a good way of holding up a mirror to people who thought they were good people and showing them who they really are.  Maybe if we were living in first century Palestine and Jesus showed us how we fall short, we might to join in throwing Jesus off a cliff.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was working for racial justice in the American South, many whites were willing to support him.  Maybe because they didn’t like the South and thought it backwards.  But when King started to take his campaign to the North, starting with Chicago in the 1966, many whites were turned off.  He had chosen to show a mirror to White Northerners and what they saw wasn’t pretty.

But the thing is, as much as this passage shows that people are not so pure, it also shows that God is loving of us, all of us even when we act like jerks. 

The two women in Washington, DC were able to get beyond boundaries to love and support each other.  In our modern age which seems more and more divided by class, race and ideology, we need to place our trust in a God that loves us all and pray that God give us a heart big enough to love “those people” as well.

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.

A Light to the Nations – Lectionary Reflection for Epiphany 2A (Isaiah 49)

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January 15, 2017

 Isaiah 49:1-7 Common English Bible (CEB)

49 Listen to me, coastlands;
pay attention, peoples far away.
The Lord called me before my birth,
called my name when I was in my mother’s womb.
2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
and hid me in the shadow of God’s own hand.
He made me a sharpened arrow,
and concealed me in God’s quiver,
3     saying to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I show my glory.”
4 But I said, “I have wearied myself in vain.
I have used up my strength for nothing.”
Nevertheless, the Lord will grant me justice;
my reward is with my God.
5 And now the Lord has decided—
the one who formed me from the womb as his servant—
to restore Jacob to God,
so that Israel might return to him.
Moreover, I’m honored in the Lord’s eyes;
my God has become my strength.
6 He said: It is not enough, since you are my servant,
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the survivors of Israel.
Hence, I will also appoint you as light to the nations
so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.
7 The Lord, redeemer of Israel and its holy one,
says to one despised,
rejected by nations,
to the slave of rulers:
Kings will see and stand up;
commanders will bow down
on account of the Lord, who is faithful,
the holy one of Israel,
who has chosen you.

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We are in the season of Epiphany, the season of revelation and light. It probably is true of every era, but it seems as if we have entered a season of darkness. Many feel like night has fallen, and we simply can’t see our way forward. For some, this might feel like being abandoned by God. They join the Psalmist crying out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Psalm 22:1). There is good news, however, for into this darkness steps the servant of God, who reveals the glory of God.

The Day of Epiphany has come and passed. We have joined Jesus at his baptism, where we watched as the Spirit fell upon him, and the voice from heaven declared him to be the beloved. In him, we declare, God is incarnate. In him, as John reveals, the light shines in the darkness, and despite everything that came against him, the darkness did not and does not overcome him (John 1:5). During this season after Epiphany we attend to the light. We look for the places where God is being revealed, so that we might be made new. With this in mind, we continue our journey through the readings from the Hebrew Bible.

The Word of God as revealed through the words of the one we call Second Isaiah, speaks of a Servant of God who is the light to the nations. When we read a text like this, especially reading at as Christians, we need to take stock of the multiple levels of interpretation that are present. I think it’s appropriate for Christians to see Jesus in these words, but we must be careful about jumping to that interpretation without attending to original contexts and readings.

The prophet tells of one who speaks to the Coastlands, that is to a people living faraway? Who is this one who speaks? Who is the one who was called from his mother’s womb? At level, this must be the prophet’s own sense of call. We don’t know his identity, but he reveals to us that before he was born, God had chosen him for a purpose.

I wonder, do those of us attending to this text, see ourselves being called by God from before birth? Do we have a sense of God’s guiding hand upon our lives? I wonder about that at times. Even though I didn’t anticipate being a pastor early in life, there are a few markers along the way that might be suggestive. I was an acolyte at the age of 9, serving at the altar, at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. Now I was one of only two children in the church of an age who could do this, but still is this a sign?  I would later serve as a lay reader at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Fr. Green decided that since I read the liturgy with enough volume, I might as well lead it. Was this a sign of a call?  I ask these questions from the perspective of a non-Calvinist, non-predestinationist, open theist, kind of Christian, who nonetheless finds some sense of purpose in words like this.

While I think that the prophet is reading his own call into this text, it’s clear that he also has in mind the people of Israel (now the remnant we call Judah). The servant of God is Israel, or the remnant thereof. The people who heard this word lived exile in Babylon. They were wondering about their future. What they knew was that the capitol city lay in ruins, the Temple of God with it. The monarchy had been essentially destroyed as well. So, who would they be if they returned home? What would be their calling? The word of the prophet is quite direct: “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I show my glory.” When it comes to glory, we’re talking about light. A bit later in this passage, the prophet says to a people living in exile:

It is not enough, since you are my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the survivors of Israel. Hence, I will also appoint you as light to the nations so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. (v. 6).

It’s not enough for the exiles to return home. No, God has plans for Israel (the tribes of Jacob). God is appointing Israel to be the “light to the nations,” so that the message of salvation might reach the ends of the earth. That is Israel’s calling. It is also our calling.

From a Christian perspective, Jesus takes on the mantle of the servant. That is, Jesus is the one Isaiah describes as being the suffering servant. He is the one who is despised by the nations (even as Israel was despised). But, despite the rejection and the resistance, Jesus is the light of the world. As the light, he brings the salvation to the world. Yes, even to the ends of the earth. The commission that Jesus gives the Disciples on the day of Ascension reflects this message. “you will be my witnesses in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

The season of Epiphany (I prefer to speak of the Sundays after Epiphany rather than Ordinary Time) is a season of revelation and enlightenment. It is a season to highlight the message of salvation in Christ. Here we are, a people who have walked in darkness, but now we have seen a great light (Isaiah 9:2).   Having experienced the light, let us take up the calling to be a light to the nations, singing that children’s song: “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, I’m gonna let it shine, I’m gonna let it shine.”

 

bobcornwallRobert Cornwall is the Pastor of Central Woodward Christian Church in Troy, Michigan and is the author of a number of books including Marriage in Interesting Times (Energion, 2016) and Freedom in Covenant (Wipf and Stock, 2015).

The Buzzcut- Baptism of Jesus

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Narrative Lectionary Reflection
January 8, 2017
Luke 3:1-22

hairdresser-1684815_640-1From the time I was about seven until maybe I was old enough to drive, my Dad would get me up at about 6am on a Saturday morning once a month to get to the barber shop before they opened around 7:30 or so. A line would form and Dad wanted to be among the first.

I hated doing this, especially during the cold, Michigan winters. Saturdays were for sleeping in and not trying to get to the barber shop before the other guy. However, we did it and maybe as a token of my patience, Dad would take me to breakfast where I would have pancakes.

I always got the same haircut; short, but not too close. For years, Dad would tell the barber what I wanted. I think when I got around 11 or 12, I started telling the barber what I wanted. Well, one Saturday, when I was about 13, I told the barber I wanted it cut short. So he went to work and I sat not paying attention. When he was done and spun me around, I was shocked; he had cut my hair really short. I mean were talking the next step was looking like Kojack. Now, these days, that is my standard haircut, but back then it wasn’t and I thought I looked horrible. I remember just crying like crazy. Here it was, I wanted a little off the top; and I what I got was a buzzcut.

This got me thinking about today’s passage; some people wanted a little off the top and John the Baptist was preaching a total buzzcut.

John the Baptist is not anyone’s favorite Biblical character. He’s rude and can’t say anything nice and he certainly lives up to that in today’s gospel, if you can it that. The passage opens with the crowds who were listening to John. Many in the crowd decided to come forward to be baptized. I’ve learned that baptism is about being reminded of God’s love for us, but I don’t think John was sitting in on my seminary class, because he calls those coming forward a “brood of vipers.” He tells them to produce fruit in keeping with repentance and to not rely on religious or family ties for salvation. He talks about an ax that is getting ready to cut down poor producing trees and throw them into the fire.

When was the last time you saw a preacher say that at a baptism? If they did, I can bet they didn’t stay in the pulpit very long.

There was a time when I would have said that poor John was off his rocker. He was preaching a message of hell and damnation, a message of what my Lutheran friends like to say, “works-righteousness.” On the other hand, Jesus preached a message of grace. But these days, John was preaching a message of salvation and grace, but he reminds us this grace isn’t cheap, but costly. John, like Jesus, was concerned with how we live. Yes, we are saved by grace not by works, but the eveidence of our faith relies on how we live. The best testimony of being a follower of Christ, is how we live our lives. Do we live them in the same way Jesus did, welcoming all, forgiving others and helping those in need?

I think if John was around today, he might call many of us snakes as well. There are too many people, especially Christians, who will shout loudly that they are religious, holy people and yet their actions say sharply otherwise.

There are a lot of people out there who think that to be a Christian means accepting certain truths; Jesus is God’s Son, Jesus died and rose again, Jesus is coming soon. If you believe that, then you are all set. But John seems to be saying that’s not enough. Of course Christians must believe in all of this, but if those beliefs aren’t lived on in our daily lives, are they real to others? If we say we believe in Christ, and yet ignore the poor, or turn people away because they are different, will people really believe us?

Christianity isn’t just about accepting certain beliefs; it’s also about living as a Christian. John the Baptist told those in the crowd to share with those who have none, don’t extort and don’t overtax the populace. He was telling people that if they were coming to be baptized; they need to live lives of repentance and not do this just for show.

On an Advent night a decade ago, I heard a memorable passage from the slain Archbishop Oscar Romero. He summed up nicely what Advent and by extension what following Jesus is all about:

Advent should admonish us to discover in each brother or sister that we greet, in each friend whose hand we shake, in each beggar who asks for bread, in each worker who wants to use the right to join a union, in each peasant who looks for work in the coffee groves, the face of Christ. Then it would not be possible to rob them, to cheat them, to deny them their rights. They are Christ, and whatever is done to them Christ will take as done to himself. This is what Advent is:

Christ living among us.

God isn’t interested in shaving a little off the top. God wants us changed, to live lives for others.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Dennis Sanders is the Pastor at First Christian Church of St. Paul in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. He’s written for various outlets including Christian Century and the Federalist.

Signs of Divine Presence – Lectionary reflection for Advent 4A

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December 18, 2016

 

Isaiah 7:10-17 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying, 11 Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. 12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. 13 Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also?   14Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. 15 He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted. 17 The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on your ancestral house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah—the king of Assyria.”

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As a follower of Jesus, I am called to live by faith. After all, I serve the invisible God. There may be signs of divine presence and activity, but it’s not always easy to offer proof. Now, I live by faith, but I try to live a rational and reasonable life. I’m not given to conspiracy theories and fake news. When it comes to such things, I’m a pretty big skeptic. But my claims to be a reasonable person might note pass muster with some who don’t share my faith. A good example of such a view is to be found in a recently published book that was sent to me for review by Yale University Press. I’m not exactly sure why I received this rather large book that carries the title: Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan. In a book that stands at well over a thousand pages, Anthony Kronman offers what he believes is a third way between atheism and the God of the Abrahamic religions. I’ve only read the introduction, so I can’t say too much about the book, but the author does believe that the God of Abraham and the Prophets is “an obstacle to reason.” I hope he’s wrong, but I do know that sometimes faith requires us to move beyond the rational. I hope Kronman’s search for God is successful, but as for me I’m going to stay with the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, Sarah, and Mary.

This leads me to the reading from Isaiah that marks the Fourth Sunday of Advent. This is the last Sunday before we gather to celebrate the coming of the incarnate one, the one named Jesus, the one who will save the people from their sins. We’re still in the moment of expectation and promise. But there are signs that suggest that God is present, at work in our midst. We simply have to open our spiritual eyes and look for them.  This, of course, requires a bit of imagination. It requires that we move out of our de-enchanted world into the realm of the Spirit.

The reading from Isaiah 7 is paired with the reading from the Gospel of Matthew, which announces the coming birth of the messiah (Matthew 1:18-25). In Matthew’s version of the infancy story, the child born of Mary fulfills the promise made in Isaiah 7, that a child would be born whose name would be called Immanuel (God is with us), and that this birth would be a sign that God will save God’s people. The word that came to Isaiah and delivered to the king of Judah, whose name was Ahaz, sought to allay the concerns of the king about the crisis that had enfolded his kingdom. The word given here concerns trust in God. It is a word that may have resonance in our day as well, even as it had resonance in the first century among the early Christians. There is a sense of unease in our midst, but will we be able to discern signs of God’s presence in our midst, or will we seek to take care of things without God? What signs do we need to let go of our anxiety?

When we turn to Isaiah 7, we find ourselves in the midst of a conversation about foreign entanglements (does that sound familiar?). King Ahaz is being pressured by his neighbors to join in alliance with Aram and Ephraim against Assyria. The two neighbors are in the process of invading, and maybe even giving siege to Jerusalem. Things look bad for Ahaz, but Isaiah has a solution, if Ahaz is willing to accept it.  Isaiah even offers to provide signs that will cause Ahaz to trust in the way of God, whether it is in the depths of Sheol or the heights of heaven. Ahaz, piously refuses to test God. It’s interesting that Ahaz is pretending to be so pious, since his reputation is anything but pious. He’s one of the bad kings, unlike his son Hezekiah. It appears that Ahaz is covering up his own anxiety and need to find an answer to the problems besetting him without any help from God, by feigning piety.  Not to be deterred, Isaiah offers a sign of his own. A young woman is pregnant, and before her child is born and weaned, the threat to Jerusalem will be over. The two kings that Ahaz is worried about will be no more. The advice seems to be—don’t make a fateful alliance with your oppressors. They will lose in the end, so stay away. That’s the basic point of the story, at least from Isaiah’s point of view. This passage, which we draw our messianic theology from, is focused on a real political crisis. Isaiah isn’t concerned about a first century child. He’s concerned about Judah in the years just prior to the fall of the northern Kingdom of Israel/Ephraim to the Assyrians. Will the king be willing to see signs of God’s presence?

For Matthew, writing centuries later, this prophetic word has important implications for his own time. He sees in it a resource for understanding who Jesus is. This is where things get tricky for us. It reveals something of how Christians read scripture. Since many Christians are uncomfortable with perceived “contradictions,” they are often give to harmonization. We like to smooth things out, which is why nativity scenes have both shepherds and magi, even though these two groups appear in different gospels, though both bear witness to this sign of divine presence. There is a tendency to read the New Testament as a first order fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Thus, we arrive at the problem of reconciling what is happening in Isaiah 7 with what happens in Matthew 1. Much of the problem has to do with the way that New Testament authors use the Old Testament. John Goldingay, an evangelical teaching at Fuller Seminary (my alma mater), offers us a helpful clarification of the connections between the two testaments.

The New Testament itself doesn’t address people who don’t believe in Jesus in order to prove from the Prophets that he is the Messiah. It does use the Prophets to help people understand aspects of their confession that Jesus is the Messiah. The passage about a virgin conceiving and having a son who would be called Immanuel, which Matthew takes up, is a notable example. [Goldingay, Isaiah for Everyone, 32].

Regarding the readings from Isaiah 7 and Matthew 1, the issue is centered on the translation of a particular Hebrew word. That word is almah, and it simply means young woman, or a woman of child-bearing age, whether she’s been with a man or not. Goldingay’s translation of Isaiah7:14 makes this clear: “Therefore my Lord—he will give you a sign. There—a girl is pregnant and is going to give birth to a son, and she will call his name God-is-with-us.” The problem stems from the way this passage is translated into Greek and then read by Matthew. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which Matthew undoubtedly made use of the Greek word parthenos,which is translated as virgin. While the Hebrew in Isaiah 7 is best translated as “young woman,” theology led to it being rendered as virgin in Christian translations to harmonize it with Matthew 1, which was read as the foundation for the virginal conception of Jesus.  

In Isaiah’s case, this is simply a young woman who is going to have a baby, and that baby will be a sign that God is at work. Who this girl is, Isaiah doesn’t say. It could be Ahaz’s son Hezekiah. It could be a child born to Isaiah’s wife. In fact, this could be any pregnancy. There’s nothing miraculous about it. The point seems to be that before the child is weaned the crisis will be over. So, put your trust in God and not the less than honorable neighbors. Again, Isaiah wants Ahaz to refrain from giving in to its neighbors, and make a fateful alliance that could lead to destruction. Stay true because God is with the people. Before too long, Assyria marches in and destroys the two neighbors, while Judah gets by barely!

It is important that we let Scripture texts have their own integrity. As Goldingay points out Matthew uses Isaiah 7:14, not an apologetic tool, but to help define who Jesus is. For Matthew, Jesus is the incarnate one (even if Matthew doesn’t exactly use that language), who represents to us the promise that God is with us. This Jesus (Immanuel) will save us from our sins (not something Isaiah has in mind, except as Ahaz decides how to respond to these outside threats). What the story of the incarnation does is remind us that God is present and at work, often within the mundane aspects of life. In the birth of a child, God is present. For Matthew God is at work in the world through the child who is being born in that moment in time. The birth in Isaiah isn’t miraculous, but for Matthew it does seem to be miraculous. This child, to be born of Mary, is conceived through the intervention of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18-25).

As we head into the final days before the coming of Christmas, may we hear the call to put out trust in God, who is with us. May we be attentive to the signs that God is at work in our midst. Let us not get caught up in battles over words, that distract from the point at hand. God has offered us a sign, if only we’re willing to pay attention. That means setting aside all the distractions that want our attention. The sign that God offers Ahaz is a simple one. A child will be born, and this child’s birth and maturation will be a sign that the external threats do not have power over us. That brings us back to the point about whether we’re able to live by faith as we take this final step toward Christmas, when the one called Jesus is born in our midst to save us from our sins.

Picture attribution: Nuttgens, Joseph Edward. Isaiah prophecies to Ahaz about the birth of Christ, Immanuel, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55805 [retrieved December 12, 2016]. Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/2838876113.

bobcornwallRobert Cornwall is the Pastor of Central Woodward Christian Church in Troy, Michigan and is the author of a number of books including Marriage in Interesting Times (Energion, 2016) and Freedom in Covenant (Wipf and Stock, 2015).